Kielo wrap maxi dress

It’s my favourite pattern of theirs due to its sheer ingenuity. It’s a gorgeous wrap dress destined to make everyone look amazing!

Again I’ve got the same gripe with Named patterns in that their paper patterns don’t include seam allowance and this one doesn’t even come as one piece to trace off! You need to join the skirts up in the middle. This was all very frustrating in that there’s so much room for error! It is only 3 pattern pieces as well so it feels like they’re skimping for no reason… I hear their PDF patterns come with seam allowances included so I think they’ll be the way to go in future and I’ll just have to sacrifice a few hours to the tape gods!

It requires a stretch fabric and I used a buttercup yellow jersey I got months ago and never found a use for. I like that the pattern doesn’t use up that much material as it’s designed to fit both pattern pieces almost next to each other on a 60″ wide fabric.

I had to shorten the pattern a fair bit and I lengthened the back vent to suit my height, otherwise this dress is exact to the original.

So the good things – it’s quick to make, I made it with a jersey so no need to finish seams if you don’t want to and the darts sit nicely.

The bad – their method of binding the raw edges makes for really thick and bumpy places. You’re looking at there being 5-6 layers of fabric in some places. I don’t think they thought about the fact that for most people stretch fabrics would be jerseys and that they’re bulky. The sample uses a stretch silk chiffon which is obviously really thin so this wouldn’t have cropped up.

In future (or if anyone is making one of these in a normal jersey), I would sew the binding to the raw edge right sides together, press binding up and fold to the wrong side. Grade the seams as needed. Topstitch 1cm from the edge and then trim the excess on the reverse. This’ll make it only 4 layers thick or less.

Here’s different ways to tie it!

I think it looks quite glam! And it’s perfect for summer (if it ever gets here…). I want to make a few more with different necklines. And maybe add a racer back? There’s a lot of potential here!

I think the PDF patterns are meant to be better but that’s still involving lots of cutting and sticking down as well… Definitely not for the faint hearted. Yeah that one is tied at the back. It’s a surprisingly versatile dress!